Don't Kiss Me Like It's Over
by OutOfTheConfinesOfFear
Summary: Set between Watershed and 6x01 (which I haven't seen) - It isn't over. A one shot of joined hands, diamonds, bedroom conversations in the morning and goodbyes at night. "He wants to wake her up with the sun and kiss her lips when the clock ticks over on the last second of this day because it's the last one he has and he needs every beat of it."


_I haven't seen 6x01 yet and I know nothing beyond Watershed because I'm Aussie and attempting to break addiction by going spoiler free, so just keep that in mind when you read this. It is set somewhere after Watershed and before Season 6 begins. _

_I tried something a little different to my other writing just to test out different styles. I wanted to try something that is more like a skeleton of a day._

_Anyway, read on. _

* * *

He's on the barely focused edge of waking, bleary eyed and tangled up in her as he catches the dawn breaking. The early morning sun battles through to relight the city, sneaking between scattered high-rises, leaking through his bedroom window and settling gently on her naked shoulders. He rakes his gaze over her, the clearing focus of the day bringing a new aching want for her, a desperate need to re-learn her body entirely, to trace every scar, to settle at the curve of her back and trip a finger along each vertebra and goose-bump, to memorise her taste and the way she sounds because he doesn't know when she'll be back.

He smiles gently at the way he has been painted over her body, finger shaped bruises bursting in light shades of blue beneath the skin of her hips, a still red bite mark at the junction of neck and shoulder, a round purpling spot in the crease of her thigh, a line beneath her breast where he traced the contours of her body.

The thick blanket is crumpled and lumpy; a casualty of love on the floor and the light sheet is twisted and wrapped around her ankles. She is exactly how they fell in an exhausted heap mere hours ago when he lay down, blanketed over her flesh and closed his eyes.

He wants to wake her up with the sun and kiss her lips when the clock ticks over on the last second of this day because it's the last one he has and he needs every beat of it.

The sun is battling to take over, thin rays of it all that's breaking through. They spark in her hair making it glitter in places and run away liquid gold over the pillow. He weaves his fingers through it, twists and curves them through threads of gold until his fingertips press into the warmth of her skin and scratch over her scalp. He leans down and nudges his nose there, breathes deeply as he inhales her and then he leans over and presses his desperate lips into her slack and pliant ones, soft with sleep. He kisses them again and again. Quick pecks that pull her from sleep until they curve up and press back into his. He lingers then, wraps her bottom lip between his and holds on tight because he loves the way he wakes her up like this but tomorrow her lips won't be there.

Her eyelashes flicker and scratch along his cheek and then her fingers curl around his ear as her thumb scratches through stubble and presses him gently away. She rolls with him, both on their sides as she blinks through sleep and finds him in clear blue. She blinks lazily on a slow pull of air and her lips lift with her eyes when she whispers a sleep roughened "Morning, Bub" through her smile. His eyes pool with hot tears then because he must look like a disaster if she just called him that.

He knows he is a disaster, shattered and shaky and so desperate it just falls out, loud and clumsy as he darts in to catch her lips in his again, "I love you". She sighs around him, the air wisping up and over his cheeks and catching on his tears. She pulls back and wipes them away with thumbs before pulling him in, kissing him quickly and telling him the she knows. Then she pulling at his ears and pressing softly into the one on the right, begging softly just "don't cry, don't kiss me like it's over." He shakes his head then, bumps it against hers before he presses his lips to her temple and lifts away with what he hopes looks like a smile.

She kicks at the sheet and huffs when it stays put and then she turns and glares at him when he chuckles. He chuckles a little harder at the look on her face, so cute when she is angry. The sound knocks about in his chest as he sits up and dives over, throwing himself on his stomach with his head at her feet. There is an actual knot in this sheet and he turns around to looks at her, she's frowning deeply and muttering something under her breath and he can't help it, his laugh bursts on a sharp sound because he is going to miss waking up to a grumbling Kate in the mornings. Her head snaps up at the sound and she's smiling softly at him, nudging him with her toes to get him moving again. He goes back to work and she drops her hand to the small of his back, scratches through the fine hair there and his body jerks in surprise, he's glaring and she's chuckling now.

He finally gets the knot undone and she pulls her legs up and rolls away from him and onto her feet. She smacks his bare ass and then winks at him before adding a sultry "Come on, Writer Man" and grabbing at his hand.

He's clumsy.

She wraps her fingers through his and tugs but his body is rolling the wrong way and all she has is his hand in hers, his arm hanging in the air and his bare body twisted on the bed. She growls at him and tugs harder, "Castle, oh my god…"

His limbs finally cooperate and he is sliding off the bed, twisting around to get his feet under him and stumbling into her, knocking her and pulling her back and muttering an apology on the top of her head that she ignores. She glares at him again, but he just thumps a kiss onto her head and staggers after her into the bathroom because there is a diamond ring pressing into their fingers as she tugs him along now.

Every motion is one handed; teeth and taps and soap. He doesn't let go.

He drops her fingers to grab at a towel, drops to his knees and pulls her body into his. He dries her off as he drips on the floor. Then he rushes, scrubs the towel over his own body and ruffles his hair before grabbing at her fingers again and waiting too quietly, too patiently, till she takes him into the bedroom.

She does.

She pulls him along to the dresser and hands him a pair of boxers. He stumbles, of course. He tugs on her arm as he gets one leg in and then hops around, bent over and tangled in his own clothes. She clicks her tongue at him and bends down, knocks his hand out of the way and holds the silk wide for him to step in. He snorts out a laugh at her because this is disgustingly ridiculous and they both know it but he can't let go and she is pretending not to notice so she just rolls her eyes and turns back to grab some clothes for herself.

She has a singlet in her hand but he snatches it from her and throws it back in the draw. She turns back to question him but he just shakes his head and reaches past her and then he pushes his old Batman shirt into her hand. She smiles but it's watery and she hides it away as she pulls the t-shirt over her head and he grasps at her fingers again before they even have time to settle back at her side.

She doesn't say anything; she just tugs him out into the kitchen and starts up the coffee machine. She shakes his hand off and goes about making the coffee but she finds it a moment later, fisted into the hem of his shirt as he just hovers beside her. She looks down at it, at the way he is clinging to her like a child; she doesn't even think he knows he is doing it because he isn't looking at her. He's looking out the window like this is any other morning, like she'll be here again tomorrow. It almost breaks her. She presses a mug into his hand, grabs her own and then knocks his hand from the shirt and laces their fingers back together before pulling him back to bed.

She drops him off on his side of the bed and rounds to hers, putting her mug down and turning to crawl onto the bed again but he isn't there. She turns around and suddenly she is pressed into his chest, his arms bound tight around her and squeezing. She wriggles in his hold, pulls an arm out from between them and wraps it around his neck before whispering, "I know, I love you too" into his skin. He loosens his arms then and tugs the shirt back off her skin.

She expects him to stay, to run his hands over her body and keep her in bed all day but he doesn't. He turns silently and walks away, stops on his side of the bed, strips off his boxers and then props his back against the pillows and scoots into the middle.

She shakes her head at him with a smirk and gets back on the bed next to him. He reaches over and tugs at her legs, lifts her hips and drops her back down in the V of his legs. He tugs her back flush against his chest and wraps one arm around her waist before reaching back over and getting his coffee. He surprises her with the gentleness of his need.

She follows him, she leans out and grabs her mug and then settles back against him, rests her left hand over his and smiles as the ring catches the sun and casts diamonds onto the ceiling. They sip at their coffee in silence and watch the diamonds dance along the ceiling for countless moments, warmed by the rising light and pretending not to count down the minutes before it dies out again.

He breaks the silence in a low voice that's gentle and caring and only hers. It rustles through the fly-away strands of her still drying hair.

"Are you scared, Kate?"

"Of what?"

Her voice matches his as they murmur a bedroom conversation into the morning light. They sit for hours, naked and pressed into each other and whispering all their fears of a new city and a new job and going through the motions without him, without her.

She presses smiles into his skin as she tells him stories of little Officer Kate Beckett, fresh off the academy steps and still in uniform, green as all the rest. Making mistakes and pushing hard against humiliation to earn honour like all the harden cops that thrashed her. She takes him through every year and every precinct and every partner that she went through before she turned into Detective Kate Beckett. She laughs at some mistakes and cries silently at the ones that cost her, shakes with tears over the ones that cost others. He tells her she is going to be "awesome" and says "Federal Agent, Kate Beckett. That's hot!" and then he lays her down and loves her slowly.

Sweaty, limp and satiated they lay together pressing kisses of apology and grief into each other's skin and run gentle touches of promise over wrists and arms and chests. They wipe away tears that they otherwise ignore.

She rolls away from him and puts the t-shirt back on and then she goes to make her way back to the kitchen, to get some lunch and finish getting her things for the plane together but his eyes trip around the room and follow her movements and he looks so broken. She stops at the edge of the bed before holding her hand out and nodding at him. His smile comes back then as he laces his fingers through hers and steps into his boxers again. Lunch and packing become one handed motions as he rocks around restlessly at her side.

He tugs her back to the bedroom and takes the shirt away again and then he is curling up next to her and asking for another story. She's talking and she knows that at this point she could be saying any words, things that don't make sense and don't belong together and it wouldn't matter, he has his eyes closed. He isn't listening, he is just breathing in her voice. She's telling him something about DC and the place she is going to stay in before she gets the apartment set up and then something about missing these sheets, but she chokes on it. The tears come and she gasps out an "I love you so much" before crashing into him.

They just move then, fast and hard as he writes himself onto her skin.

She puts herself together with one hand, clothes and makeup and picking up the things that have to go with her. She drags him along, nudges him out of the way and turns him around, tugs him and pulls him as she gets ready to leave and then they are sitting in the back seat of a hire-car with his fingers still twisted around hers and he is shaking his leg to keep the tears at bay. She begged him this morning not to cry. She lets it go for half the journey but when his movements start shaking the car she presses his thigh down, leaves her hand there to lever herself into his lips. She kisses him thoroughly and then reminds him, "I'll see you soon."

Everything is one-handed until the final boarding call, until she tugs him up with her and wraps her arms around his waist, buries herself in him for a too short moment before taking a step back.

"I'm so proud of you" he says before knotting his fingers in her hair, cradling the back of her head in his palms with his thumbs pressing below her ears. He leans down to press his lips to hers but her lips stretch out and all he feels is his smile crash softly into hers.

He doesn't know what he's smiling about but she always makes him feel like he knows the joke.

He pulls back to look at her and her smile stretches wider. It crinkles around her eyes and he has to feel it. He gently reaches out to touch her laughter lines, reverently runs his fingertips right back through the brightest of her history and captures a tangible memory of her happiness in his hands. She goes shy at his touch, the curtain of her eyelashes falling slowly as she turns into him, places a gentle kiss in his palm before whispering "Thank you".

His brow crinkles as he tips his head to knock the words into place in his mind but they don't settle anywhere, he doesn't understand because he did nothing but tangle himself in her body all day and try to share her breath. He whispers back just as gently while he presses the end of her laughter lines into his thumb, "For what, Kate?"

"For giving me those" she says quietly.

She kisses his thumb and then she's gone.

* * *

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_If you have a minute, let me know. _

___Thanks for reading!_


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